Dr.
Vojdani and many other researchers say they find that toxins (chemical
injury) are NOT OK!! They believe
in some cases they've damaged our gut so badly
we cannot digest some of our food safely. They say they find that
mainly the toxins,
and also stress and
infections (some
believe infections follow toxins) are underlying factors in the gluten
syndrome. Going gluten free is not enough. We must reduce and
eliminate toxins as possible.

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B. Gut damage is significant and more gluten
molecules pass the gut wall. (2) A common term for this condition is
"leaky gut". This activates antibodies to form in the
blood stream against one or more gluten/gliadin/wheat related molecules.

C. Specific genes (5) contribute to this
particular reaction pathway, making it easier for antibodies to be
formed. The antibodies bind to many substances including body
tissues that "look similar" to gluten (10). The antibodies then
attract "killer cells" (8) to the substances with which they bind
including body tissues. This damages the tissues, and is called an
autoimmune reaction. (5)

D. Formation of antibodies to various products
of this process cross react with many tissues to produce autoimmunity.
(10) Note the "T" in red denotes "tissues". In simple terms
these "T" tissues are body tissues such as organ, brain, nerve, and many
more.

C. The gut wall is very badly damaged (8) and
"leaky" (4). This allows many large food peptides (pieces) to
cross the gut wall before sufficient digestion can appropriately break
them into very tiny pieces. These pieces enter the cell, (6), are
rejected and pushed back to the cell surface to be recognized and
destroyed by killer cells (7). This is only one of several
destructive reactions.

D. This reaction can happen to anyone!
This gluten/other food intolerance pathway does NOT require a
predisposing gene.

E. This pathway produces antibodies
(symbolized by Y) which then "stick to" or "tag" many body or organ
tissues like dunce caps. This marks that tissue for autoimmune
destruction by various killer cells. Please carefully examine
(13). Note that the human figure is covered with "Y" (antibody)
symbols. The list of known affected body tissues and organs is not
complete in this diagram.

F. Since this pathway involves cross reactions
with many body/organ tissues and eventually with multiple foods, testing
is recommended for a number of gluten related antibodies, AND milk and
other problematic food proteins PLUS several susceptible organs
and other related markers. (See Celiac Neuroautoimmune Panel,
Immunosciences Laboratories, below). This blood panel contains
many tests for gluten reactivity, other foods that cross react with
gluten, and for multiple organ/tissue damage.

Some patients try the saliva screener first
and then move to a more complete antibody panel if the screener is
negative. If the patient makes these particular antibodies, this test is
claimed to have a 96% sensitivity. (This means out of 100 positive samples
it will accurately pick up 96 of them).

NOTE: The tests above will be negative if
patient has other gluten related antibodies besides the ones tested, or
they are in a different system such as IgG, or another medium such as stool, blood.

The above tests check all known gluten
related antibodies for which there are tests. There are known
glutenins for which there are no tests.

Plans are in place to
offer the saliva and blood based gluten related antibody panels on this
page in "progressive" form. The lab only runs tests until a positive
is obtained or until they run out of available tests. This helps
control costs and patients only need to send in specimens once.

NEW powerpoint by Dr.
Vojdani presented at Autism One conference, May, 2010
- I
Don't Want to Be 17This presentation discusses
the role of mucosal immune abnormalities in Neurodegeneration and focuses
on IL-17.

Dr Vojdani is a gluten
syndrome focused researcher. His test panels are oriented to
diagnosing a wider scope of the gluten syndrome.

*This
website has no financial interest in products or services mentioned on
this site.

There are two
major perspectives on the gluten syndrome vs. celiac disease that
involve how to test and interpret tests.

Gluten Syndrome focused
researchers believe -

antibodies are conclusive
proof of immune reaction to gluten and indicate need for the
gluten free diet. They do NOT recommend villi biopsy unless
there are other reasons to examine the gut. They use other
comprehensive blood test panels to find multiple tissue and
function damage instead of focusing on only one tissue, (villi).

there are many gluten related
antibodies, and they may show up in any of several areas of the
immune system, IgA, IgG, or IgM, or in any of several mediums,
such as blood, saliva or stool. They test as many antibodies
as necessary to find the particular antibodies a patient may
produce, with much higher rates of positivity than short panels
yield. However, in the end they consider even the most
complete negative test panel necessarily inconclusive since there
are known antibodies for which there are no tests at this time
(this is uncommon).

gluten syndrome
patients may have autoimmune damage in any of many possible body areas
insteadof or as well as villi damage. Therefore
they do NOT use the tTG test to screen for reactivity to gluten
since tTG is specific to one area of damage only, total intestinal
villi atrophy.

Dr Vojdani, Immunosciences
Laboratories, believes elevated tTG is sometimes but not always present in
a gluten related autoimmune reaction. Therefore he believes it
should be included in test panels but not used alose as a screener.

Celiac (villi damage focused)
specialists believe -

ONLY intestinal villi or skin damage proved by
biopsy are "gold standard" indicators of autoimmune gluten
damage and treatment with gluten free diet. If gluten related
antibodies are present without villi or skin damage the antibodies are
disregarded as irrelevant or false positive.

tTg - IgA alone is an
inexpensive screener to identify patients who should be biopsied for villi
damage since it is largely specific to villi damage.